


Reforge to Glass

by Lolibat



Category: Naruto
Genre: BAMF Haruno Sakura, F/M, Future Fic, Future sakura, Gen, Gift Fic, Pulling my weight, Wish Fulfillment, itsthechocopuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-14
Updated: 2019-07-14
Packaged: 2020-06-28 00:12:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19800691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lolibat/pseuds/Lolibat
Summary: The pitter patter of the rain caught Sakura’s attention as she raced through the bamboo grooves. The scent of wet Earth lingered in the air as the sky ahead darkened.Rain soon- likely a monsoon late in the season, she thought with a grimace. If there was one thing she could pick to have, it would be a fairweather trip to the coast. Instead, she gets a rainstorm dumped on her head in the middle of nowhere. Great, she sighed.In which Sakura hides from the rain and finds something else instead. Or rather, someone else.Gift fic for itsthechocopuff for her fic Pulling My Weight (actually, it's more a gift fic for her spinoff fic of Pulling My Weight, wish fulfillment)





	Reforge to Glass

**Author's Note:**

  * For [itsthechocopuff](https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsthechocopuff/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Pulling My Weight](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6737008) by [itsthechocopuff](https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsthechocopuff/pseuds/itsthechocopuff). 



The pitter patter of the rain caught Sakura’s attention as she raced through the bamboo grooves. The scent of wet Earth lingered in the air as the sky ahead darkened.

Rain soon- likely a monsoon late in the season, she thought with a grimace. If there was one thing she could pick to have, it would be a fairweather trip to the coast. Instead, she gets a rainstorm dumped on her head in the middle of nowhere. Great, she sighed.

It was her first solo mission in months; to let out some steam, Mei said when she was called into the Mizukage's office for "assault" for the third time that month. Sakura regrets nothing; that piece of trash was the reason Yoshiro came home with a broken arm and bruises all over his front. She sent the asshole to the hospital with double the injuries and both arms broken- nevermind that he was one of Mist’s old jounins from before the current Mizukage’s reign.

She was simply better.

Lost in her thoughts, she almost didn’t notice the small teashop tucked away at the edge of the bamboos. Curious and quickly running low on options, she ducked in past the curtain of wooden beads, hoping for temporary shelter.

“Excuse me, is anyone-“ she called. The shop was devoid of customers: not unusual at this time of the day. Wary travelers have yet to settle down for the night. She glanced at the nearest table: clean, without a speck of dust on it.

A shadow moved from the far end of the shop- a figure the emerged, and Sakura froze to the core immediately.

An elegant hand parted the cloth half curtain the led to the kitchens... revealing a face Sakura had long thought to be dead. Obsidian eyes meet viridian ones as Sakura's brain tried to make sense of what it was seeing. In front of her was Uchiha Itachi. Whole, alive, and breathing. Three words Sakura would not use to describe Uchiha Itachi ten minutes ago.

He hasn’t changed much; the lines of exhaustion over his eyes faded a bit, perhaps, but there were some strands of premature grey that weren’t present before. His shoulders seem a bit less burdened, his back a bit straighter, his face less gaunt. Even if he aged, he aged with grace, Sakura noted. It was odd, seeing him in a working yukata with the sleeves tied up and an apron around his waist. He still looks like a shinobi in the way he stands and holds himself- even peacetime can't wipe away reflexes written in blood, but peace is a surprisingly good look on the infamous killer.

A barely noticeable widening of his eyes was the only tell of his surprise; that he was just as shocked to see her as she was to see him. He hesitated for barely a moment before reaching for the menu on the counter and a ceramic tea cup.

Sakura couldn’t help but tense up as he walked over, handing her the menu slowly. His posture was nonthreatening, and Sakura couldn't see any hidden lines of weapons pressed against his clothes, but she knew that Uchiha Itachi needs no weapons to be dangerous.

“It’s on the house,” he murmured quietly. He disappeared promptly behind the kitchen after that, leaving her to look over the array of -admittedly very attractive looking- wagashi sweets. Still, her mind ran a mile a minute; what was Uchiha Itachi doing here, in a teahouse in the middle of the woods? He was- supposed to be- dead! Crushed in Pein’s attack, revived and yet dead by his own choice, if Sasuke’s word holds true.

They never found a body, a part of her whispered.

A lot of bodies were never found, even after Konoha finished rebuilding, she thinks. In the end, Konoha raised a monument to all the dead, the toll having been higher than what anyone could have imagined. The hair on the back of her neck stood up, breaking her from her thoughts. She had her hand on a kunai handle before she could even process the action.

She looked up from her menu to find Itachi walking over with an assortment of sweets and a teapot. He sat down across from her, seemingly not noticing that Sakura was half a second from skewering him. Or was going to try to do so.

“It’s Snow Country Oolong tea,” he said calmly, pouring her a cup and them himself one as well. As a sign of good faith, he sat down and took a sip first. Still, Sakura ran a chakra-green hand over her tea and the sweets, her paranoia knowing better that to trust. Itachi’s lips quirked, as if he didn’t expect any less of her. She huffed but took the cup anyways.

Hesitantly, she took a sip. “It’s good!” She said, surprise coloring her voice. She held the warm teacup in her hand and watched the steam curl up in wisps. Outside, rain was starting to fall in sheets, waves of opaque white obscuring the bamboo.

Itachi raised an eyebrow, as if asking how it could be anything but. Fleetingly, his gaze flickered up to her forehead- to her headband- or rather, the lack of it.

Uchihas, Sakura thought with a bit of a sigh. She could almost guess his thoughts.

“I moved,” she shrugged nonchalantly. Itachi raised his other eyebrow, hardly believing that the girl who nearly matched his mission record would simply move.

“You broke,” he corrected bluntly, sipping on his tea.

Sakura barked a laugh, bitterness coloring her tone. “From one broken tool to another,” she joked bitterly. “I killed and killed and I broke and broke until there was nothing left of me-“

“-but fine sand, to be reforged to glass,” he finished for her, understanding in his gaze. There was no accusation, no shame or guilt- simply understanding. Understanding on a level bone deep, a bond forged through sleepless nights and hands stained the deep maroon of innocent blood.

Who knew Uchiha Itachi could be so kind, she thought. “Yes, I suppose so,” she said. She picked up a sweet- willing her hands not to tremble all the while- and took a nibble. “It’s good,” she said. She examined the delicate periwinkle-and-pink hydrangea wagashi. The details really were exquisite, she thinks. People like her- like them- don't deserve such nice things, a part of her whispers. She locks it away in a dark corner of her mind and throws away the key.

Itachi switched the topic with grace. Clearly, you can take the man out of shinobi forces, but you'll never take the shinobi out of the man. “It’s an old Uchiha recipe, made from our old wagashi moulds.”

Somehow, Sakura could hardly imagine that of all things Itachi could take from the once-Uchiha estates, it would be sweet moulds. She wondered, if Itachi took anything else from the Great Uchiha Yardsale, as she had named it. Did Tsunade know that the figures didn't match up? That items went missing? Did Sasuke know?

For a while, Sakura sat, holding her warm cup of tea. She stared out into the downpour surrounding them, watched as the rain dripped steadily down around them.There’s something about him that’s changed, Sakura thinks, and it’s not the apron or the tea- but something else. Something's missing.

He looks at peace, she realized. He looks at peace in a way he wasn’t- has never been. Looking at him now, peering into the rain as if it held the answers to life itself, Sakura can’t imagine Uchiha Itachi being anything other than tranquil sweets maker; she has no doubt he could kill her in two dozen ways at the drop of a hat, but this Itachi wouldn’t be inclined to lift a finger for anything other than tea and sweets. He simply looked so happy, so content to be in a tiny teahouse on the edge of the bamboos, that Sakura can't see him leaving it for anything in the world.

And perhaps that is what life boils down to; a quest to find peace- a sense of fulfillment in whatever way they can, unique to the individual or not. To find peace in a maelstrom, in a world on the brink of collapse, war, and ruin. To just... find a moment when time stops and just breathe. Even if it is in a small tea shop in the middle of nowhere.

“Sasuke’s the jonin commander of Oto now,” Sakura murmurs after a moment of companionable silence. She relaxes, bit by bit, but takes care not to let her guard down entirely. “He drives Orochimaru spare; he complains to Tsunade, but she calls it his penance." Sakura thinks of how Shikamaru finds the now-retired Godaime sharing tea with the Otokage three days out of five and has given up completely on trying to kick either of them out. Or to get them to do anything productive, if they must meet. "He married Karin- the Uzumaki sensor working for Sound. They have a daughter now, I think- Sarada.”

Itachi’s lips twitched. “He always was too brash for his own good. Too hotheaded and impulsive.” A spot of tension bleeds out of his expression- no siblings. No brothers. The Uchiha line ends with Sasuke’s child, as it should.

Sakura inwardly agreed with Itachi’s judgement. The younger Uchiha was nothing if not hotheaded- not a good trait for a commander to have. What was Orochimaru thinking, making Sasuke the commander? Thinking back to Shikaku- or even Shikamaru, there’s a world of difference between the two.

“Naruto’s wandering around, gone globe trotting,” she continues. She hardly hears from him nowadays, aside from the occasional report from her spies. He was never suited to be Hokage, much like how Sasuke was never suited to be commander: all heart and no brain. For a while, he was going to marry Hinata, but to everyone’s surprise, Neji put his foot down. “Not if you don’t love her with all your heart,” the newly instated Rokudaime Hokage said firmly. Naruto relented.

“Much like the late Jiraiya,” Itachi mused. Exactly like that, Sakura thought. Except Naruto doesn't have the acumen of a spymaster- can't hold up a network like Jiraiya can... so he simply wanders, an army and nation to his own.

Sakura observed Itachi closely; the name sounded foreign on his lips- not well practiced and without the usual familiarity. She wonders, how a man like Jiraiya could have missed Itachi’s survival, and she wonders if he really missed it at all.

The silence is telling, but who is to know? Even now, sitting across from the man himself, Sakura could hardly believe his survival.

She paused when she thought about her own life. What was there to say, really? She looks down at her hands, warmed pink by the cup of tea before her. What was once a pair of hands stained irreversibly by blood is now a sculptor’s hands; a lover’s hands. She sculpts young minds by day, loves by night. Reforged into glass, she thinks. Something stronger and very different than what it was before.

“... I moved,” she says finally repeated. “I’m a teacher now, at the Academy.” She doesn’t mention which one; she has no doubt that Uchiha Itachi knows where she moved to- or at least guessed- but she would never willingly disclose the information. He may be changed, and her childhood fear may have disappeared, but the assassin in her hasn’t disappeared. Not yet. Not while there is need of her yet.

He stares at her knowingly with all the patience in the world. He doesn’t judge; not that he has any right to- having hung up his Akatsuki cloak for a working kimono with tied sleeves.

“It’s... nice,” Sakura says, mulling through the words. Nice is a good word to describe her life now; tranquil. Peaceful. Something she can look forward to on every sunrise and every sunset. She thinks of the laughs of her students, the bright curiosity and innocence that she knows won’t last (but she treasures every moment it does) and knows that she wouldn’t trade her new life for anything in the world. She carefully doesn’t think of Genma, who wasn’t in the least surprised when she decided to stay for good. Doesn’t think of Shikamaru, who marries Temari in the end and continues to go back and forth between the countries.

Instead, she thinks of Yuki’s warm hands on Mist’s cold nights. She thinks of his kisses and the way her lip sometimes get caught on his sharpened teeth. She thinks of the cactus garden that she's started at his apartment, which somehow fits right in. She thinks of Chojuro’s solid friendship and Mei’s steady hand guiding the village. She thinks of Chaos and Mayhem sitting on her face in the mornings. Well, maybe not quite that.

“Hn,” Itachi agrees, sipping his tea. They lapse into silence, with the pitter patter of rain to keep them company. In the distance, a murder of crows make their presence known. Sakura glances at them and wonders if they're wild crows or something else entirely.

Sakura takes a deep breath and reorients herself, brushes down her paranoia- recalibrates herself as old memories slot back into place, tucked and hidden away. She breathes in the rain and brings herself back to reality.

“I’m here to look through Uzushio’s ruins,” Sakura says, her tone all business. “My boss thought I could use a bit of fresh air every now and then.”

Itachi’s lips twitch- “to keep your skills sharp,” he murmurs.

“To keep me from sending another idiot to the hospital,” she replies drily. "No one appreciates spring cleaning nowadays."

Itachi’s lips twitch upwards; she thinks she hears something about her temper, but she pretends not to. It's only polite.

“There’s not much left of the Uzushio ruins,” Itachi shrugs. She figured as much- if there was anything left, it would have been picked clean years ago. “But perhaps you would have more luck with their underwater caves.”

“Underwater caves?” She echoes. Nowhere in her mission paramerters did it mention Uzushio having underwater caves

“There is a cave system that emerge on low tide underneath the village- it's very well hidden, and it wouldn’t be unimaginable for their seal masters to hide their work there, where it is submerged by the tides,” Itachi murmurs. He absently sketches a map on the plate with a dango stick.

It would be quite dangerous, she thinks- given the time limit imposed on her.

“Worst comes to worst, I’ll punch my way out,” she shrugs. If I even find it, she thinks critically with a pause as she eyes the oddly shaped squiggles being drawn. Uchiha Itachi is a surprisingly bad artist, she realizes at the worst possible time.

It wouldn’t be easy- hell, it’ll probably collapse the whole cave system- but it’s doable if push comes to shove, she thinks, her mind balancing equations and analyzing human physiology on the fly.

Clearly Itachi has thought so as well, to bring the topic up with her.

“Then I wish you the best in your endeavors,” he says, getting up and collecting the dishes gracefully as he goes.

Sakura knows a dismissal when she sees one; she’s not at an Uchiha’s beck and call, but as tea was on the house, she acquiesces just this time. All the same, she doubts there will be another.

“Thank you,” she says politely with a nod of her head. Itachi returns her nod with the slightest incline of his head and disappears into the kitchen. When the rain finally lets up, Sakura ducks out of the shop quietly; she’s sure that Itachi would have felt her leave anyways. She’s not wrong.

Sakura leisurely makes her way to the Uzushio ruins- and true to the Uchiha’s words, there are underwater caves there. The entrance was rapidly sinking beneath the tide, so she sets camp for the night and makes her plans for tomorrow.

It takes her an extra week to map the caves: returning to Mei with the information would be better than exploring without backup, she thinks. She marks the spots and notches in the walls where faded seals glimmer with remnants of chakra, broken parts of a masterpiece stretching deep within the heart of Uzushio itself.

When she makes her way back to Mist, she takes her time to wander through the bamboo groves again, looking for that one tea house resting on the edge of the bamboos. As she expected, she never finds any evidence that there was any tea house there at all.   
  


**Author's Note:**

> Ta-da! I gave up on editing and re-editing this fic, so I will just publish it on here as is. Work is completely crazy and nuts and about 2.5 times busier than internship, so I probably won't have any time to write in the near future. But I did have this written already and wanted to publish it, so here it is! 
> 
> This piece was written on call at like 11pm a month or two ago. It was absolutely pouring outside then- I hope I captured the mood well in this piece! 
> 
> I hope you guys like it! Thank you for reading!


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